In an odd move to protect people from the dangers of online gambling, British Columbia is opening its own online gambling site, complete with casino style games. And an increase in gambling limits from $120 a week to $9,999. Which begs the question — when governments, any government, says they are regulating or forbidding gambling, are they doing that to protect the people or to protect themselves.
British Columbia’s complaint was that there were about 2,000 illegal gambling sites in operation that aren’t answerable to the government. So they set up their own gambling site. And then drastically increased the betting amount to a level that you can’t expect me to believe the average person can afford. And of course the government benefits directly when people lose. Which seems to be sort of a conflict of interests.
Now, there are a few different views that come into conflict in this process. One is a study that shows that online gamblers are more likely to be problem gamblers. Keep in mind that it doesn’t say that gambling online will make you a problem gambler, bit is more of an indicator that those who already have a gambling problem are like to take advantage of online gambling. But then there is the problem in all this. When a site, like a gambling site, is run by the government, people put more trust in it. After all, the government is created to protect and serve the people, so shouldn’t the site?
But often a government is the poorest regulator of itself. And by running its own gambling site, British Columbia has placed itself in a position to do just that. And from what I am reading, there is no certainty out there that the government has done the necessary work to ensure that there are safe guards n place on its own site to protect gamblers. In fact, they are currently being sued by a problem gambler who claimed that the government’s current self exclusion program did nothing to protect her even though she had signed up for it and identified herself as a problem gambler.
By no means does this mean I am against online gambling. I enjoy playing at online sites and am able to limit my own spending to ensure I spend no more than I should. And I have no problem with a government provided regulations or safeguards for online gambling (and brick-and-mortar) sites. But expecting a government to regulate their own online gambling site is like asking a problem gambler to watch their own bankroll.